Find an alternative, funny image to focus on every time you start worrying. In a classic study of thought suppression, participants who were instructed not to think about a white bear ironically couldn’t stop themselves from thinking about a white bear. But, when given an alternative image, they could focus on that instead. My favorite image is a bright pink elephant on roller skates. When you start to worry or ruminate, think of your elephant!
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anxiety
Sleep Hack: 4th of 4 Reasons For Sleeping Problems
Underlying Conditions
Many chronic health problems can throw a monkey wrench into a sound sleep. These are some of the most common in older age:
Anxiety or depression. Worries or a depressed mood may make it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Enlarged prostate gland (benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH). The urge to empty the bladder wakes men with BPH throughout the night.
Chronic pain. It’s hard to stay asleep when you’re hurting. “And it’s a two-way street. Sleep deprivation worsens next-day pain,” Dr. Bertisch says.
Neuropathy. Tingling, numbness, or pain in the hands and feet can cause frequent waking.
Sleep apnea. Loud snoring and brief awakenings during the night may be signs you have sleep apnea, which causes brief pauses in breathing at night and leads to daytime sleepiness.
Stress Hack: Pop the Bubbles
Picture your worries as bubbles popping in the air, or as leaves floating down a stream. This is a mindfulness technique that can give you some distance from your worries.
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Stress Hack: Train Yourself When to Worry
Designate a Worry Time & Place
Make a “worry corner” in your house, or designate a chair as your “worry chair.” Allow yourself to worry about your stressor only when you’re in your worry chair or corner. Give yourself fifteen minutes two or three times a day to sit and worry. If worries come up at other times, either write them down or save them up for your next worry period. Soon your brain will learn to associate worry only with your worry chair and associate all your other activities with the absence of worry. In this way, you can satisfy your urge to worry in a controlled, time-limited way.
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Stress Hack: Slam the Brakes on Worry
Practice thought-stopping. Wrap an elastic band around your wrist, and snap it hard every time you notice yourself beginning to worry or ruminate. Shout aloud, “Stop!” (or shout it to yourself if it’s not socially appropriate to shout it out). Visualize a big red stop sign. Or visualize a detour sign, directing you onto a new mental track. You may even want to visualize a TV control that allows you to change channels by putting on a more positive or humorous mental program.
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Stress Hack: Does Worrying Help?
If you find yourself worrying . . . ask yourself how helpful the worry is. Are you actually finding new solutions and making concrete plans to implement them? Are you seeing the situation in a new light or in a more positive way? Do you feel better after thinking about the problem in this way, or do you feel worse? If you aren’t finding solutions and new perspectives and you feel worse, then the worry is unhelpful and it is more helpful to focus on something different.
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Stress Hack: Clench Your Right Fist
Clench and unclench your right fist a few times.
Clenching your right hand activates the left side of the brain, which is more verbal and logical. The right brain is more global and emotional. So, if you feel flooded by fear and anxiety (a right brain function), activating your left brain can prime you to think through the situation in a logical way instead.
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Sleep Hack: Hide Your Clock & Smart Phone
Don’t watch the clock. Another common anxiety that lurks in the wee-hours of a sleepless night is the mounting awareness that you’re not asleep when you should be. Stress and frustration – not typically emotions that welcome relaxation – escalate as you fret about how you need to be up for work in four (or three or two) hours. The experts’ suggestion? Get rid of time cues. “No clock watching,” Walia says, “That’s a big no-no. Turn the clock around.”
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Stress Hack: #3 of 4 Strategies to Stop a Panic Attack
Close Your Eyes, Reduce Stimuli, & Focus on Breathing
Some panic attacks come from triggers that overwhelm you. If you’re in a fast-paced environment with a lot of stimuli, this can feed your panic attack. To reduce the stimuli, close your eyes during your panic attack. This can block out any extra stimuli and make it easier to focus on your breathing.
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